Duke Nukem 3D Hands-on

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By Hilary Goldstein

Duke Nukem Forever is taking, well, forever to come out. How does a Duke fan hold himself over until Hell freezes over? Fortunately, 3D Realms is releasing Duke Nukem 3D on Xbox Live Arcade later this year. Now you can relive (or discover for the first time) the zany magic of Duke Nukem. This is more or less a "true" port of Duke Nukem 3D. So the visuals haven't been redone to equal 2008 quality. This is good ol' Duke in all his pixelated glory. While the lack of a fully redone version may be a disappointment, I have to say that I was amazed how well Duke holds up after a dozen years.

If you never played Duke Nukem 3D, it's a Doom clone packed with humor and scantily clad babes. Duke is full of one-liners lovingly lifted from Evil Dead and other cult-classic films and delivered with gravitas. "Your face. Your ass. What's the difference?" Duke will leave you chuckling between blasts from your boomstick.

Ah, but you care more about the girls, don't you? Yes, there are plenty of low-res stripper posters on walls to ogle and even dancers you can tip. Sure, you could kill the hookers and strippers, but doing so sometimes brings punishment in the form of a throng of spawned enemies. It's best to tip your waitress rather than explode her.

Duke Nukem is a better console fit, believe it or not, than Doom or Bungie's Marathon. The controls don't feel limited as in some other shooters of yore and 3D Realms really did throw everything and the kitchen sink into this game. Sure, you have your standard guns such as the pistol, shotgun and rocket launcher, but there are many cool guns more-or-less unique to Duke. The most fun of these is the Shrink Ray, which does as the name implies. Shrink enemies and then step on them -- what could be more fun? Should you expend all your ammo (or just for the hell of it), you can deliver a mighty kick with a squeeze of the Left Trigger. There's something incredibly satisfying about putting your boot through an alien's face.

There are also a number of items you can equip with the D-pad and employ. There's medkits, of course, but also night vision goggles and the Holoduke (which creates a dummy Duke to fool enemies). The coolest of all items, however, is the jetpack. Strap it on and for a limited time you can take to the air. Figuring out how to gain altitude isn't so easy since Duke's control listings aren't very detailed. But turn on the jetpack and you gain altitude with the A button. This helps to get to some of the secrets (there are tons in every level) and to take on flying enemies.

Duke Nukem is a fast-paced game. In fact, stick around in an area too long twiddling your Nukem and more enemies will spawn to give you something to shoot at. Unlike Doom, enemies are general quick and pretty merciless. Pig Cops, for example, take several shotgun blasts to the face to die and will even drop to the ground and shoot from their fat little bellies, making them tougher to hit.

You are going to die. But don't worry, there's a nifty feature that makes Duke Nukem 3D manageable for any skill level. Your entire game is recorded automatically. Die and you can rewind to any previous point in a level and take over play. So if you realize you needed to conserve your RPG rounds, you can jump back two minutes in time and save them for later. Clips of your play can be shared with friends online and top time and score leaders will have their clips available for download on Xbox Live Leaderboards. Want to know how someone finished the first level in under a minute? Now you can watch and learn. Not sure where a secret is located? The score leader probably found them all, so watch his run and see where things are located.

If you want some help kicking ass and/or chewing bubble gum, Duke Nukem 3D supports eight-player online co-op. That's something I haven't had a chance to enjoy yet (mainly because we don't have eight people in the office lucky enough to get a build), but I can only imagine it's going to be a totally insane experience.

Duke Nukem 3D was a breakthrough game for its time. It would have been nice to see it get the full remake treatment like Prince of Persia or Bionic Commando Rearmed. Still, Duke Nukem 3D remains a ton of fun with humor that still stands up 12 years later. A release date hasn't been set yet for Duke Nukem 3D, but 3D Realms confirmed it has been certified and is ready for release in September. Sound like we'll be gettin' some soon enough.

As Duke so aptly explains, "Nobody jacks with our independence." Especially not aliens.